Visual studio 2008, is it worth it?
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ToddHileHoffer wrote:
It is too bad you can't do 3.5 development
I can, I investigated it thoroughly and could see no benefit at all to it and in fact many down sides and have chosen not to use it. I have a lot of hand crafted code for getting my objects into and out of the database and performance wise it's much faster. As well we aren't married to MS SQL server as we have a db independant layer between the database and the business object framework so we can support FireBird and MS SQL and whatever else comes along that starts getting wide usage. I'm not big on stored procedures, in fact I'm very much against them but that's a discussion for another thread. :)
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
I also prefer to use other layer of database abstraction instead of relying to the generated LinqToSQL. However, I have more fun using VS2008 just for the C# language feature: > automatic property > lambda function > anonymous type and anonymous function > Linq to IEnumerable > Variable type infer > and many more. It save key stroke and make the code more concise. VS2008 also allow targeting .NET 2.0. So, we should have no problem to maintain existing codebase targeting .NET 2.0. Since all .NET 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 still using the same CLR engine for 2.0, I can still use all .NET 3.5 specific like LinqToSQL or LinqToXML in .NET20SP1 machine, provided all the necessary dll is copied along. So, 'Go' with VS2008 SP1.
I like you, and I love programming more.
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Shog9 wrote:
The JavaScript debugging is improved
Yeah, but you can just use VS 2005 + Firefox + Firebug for free. :)
Kevin
Voila :-) Firefox and firebug are the best, ms tries to copy but i rather stick with the real thing. ;-)
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I'm about to embark on a new development cycle for a major product that has winform and asp.net interface. We use Telerik, DevExpress and Infragistics components in it and all are going to have a release within a month or so which will be the one I target for our spring release of our product. They all support VS2005 and we will continue to target .net 2+ so I can't see any compelling reason so far to upgrade to VS2008. Has anyone found a compelling reason for vs2008 in the realm of .net development?
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
Hi, Stored proc or JS are details. The big question is do we save time and money to reach the same result or do we spend again a lot of money and time to learn a new product? What improvements are in it for you and you're customers ? [little story] I'd remember Borland (once) didn't sell a lot of new versions because the current products had already everything available to produce what you wanted. Microsoft instead needed new releases to keep up. i asure you i develop an application with Delphi 5 in a shorter time than VS2005 still having the same functionality and even better performance running on all MS os's Win95/win98/win2000/Xp/vista. VS will only run on Xp and with a little of luck the layout stays the same in vista. [/little story] So can you do you're job with VS2003 or VS2005 still providing what customers ask? Think how much money you'll lose or win (license, courses, learning curve) just trying to keep up every new (better?) version available. :-) i suppose it differs for everyone. greetz kurt
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I'm about to embark on a new development cycle for a major product that has winform and asp.net interface. We use Telerik, DevExpress and Infragistics components in it and all are going to have a release within a month or so which will be the one I target for our spring release of our product. They all support VS2005 and we will continue to target .net 2+ so I can't see any compelling reason so far to upgrade to VS2008. Has anyone found a compelling reason for vs2008 in the realm of .net development?
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
I can only speak for the C/C++ side of it... To me it feels like the product that VS 2005 should've been. It looks very similar, but is faster, more capable and more mature. A number of new features should make the best use of newer hardware (eg multi CPU build process etc). A number of the old problems with Intellisense etc locking up the IDE, which got partly addressed in VS 2005 SP1 got a more fundamental improvement in VS 2008. Plus you can use VS 2008 SP1 to get the new "feature pack" for VS 2008, including MFC improvements and the various C++ language improvements etc. In short, it's definitely better, but whether it's essential is less clear. For me, I'd say yes, I found VS 2005 too much of an obstacle to productivity unlike VS 2008. Mike
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Guy Harwood wrote:
There are some good improvements to the framework like System.Timezone
As I said I'm targetting .net 2.0+, I don't want the hassle of having all our customers upgrade to .net 3.5 if they don't have it already and there is really nothing in there of benefit to my end users.
Guy Harwood wrote:
best to bring your tools up to date before you start
I don't think it's a good idea to mess with a working setup unless you absolutely have to or there is some *very* compelling reason to do so. I can't afford the luxury of spending a lot of time playing with it to get it working if there is a problem, it's a huge complex solution with dozens of projects in it and uses just about every project type visual studio supports for .net. Thanks for your input but after reading all the responses and doing some more research there just isn't anything in there worth the risk of lost time for me. I'll stick with it until my 3rd party component vendors force me to upgrade. I think the scales balance in favour of not updating because I can bring far more important things to my end users simply by having more time to work on new features rather than mucking about changing visual studio versions.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
Hello, I have the same problem. I don't know if it's a good idea to migrate now to VS 2008. Many of our customers already use "old" OS like Windows 2000 and I think .Net 3.5 is only compatible with "new" OS (Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows XP from download page of the redistributable package). I can't evaluate exactly when our customers will migrate to new OS and which one. If I migrate now to VS2008 and continue targeting .Net 2.0 applications, then in 2-3 years our customers migrate to Vista SP X or to new OS version, I think a new VS release will happen at the same time and perhaps a new version of the framework that you can't use in VS 2008. No ? Actually, I think the only interest to update is for web applications development (because there is many improvements like improved JS intellisense, debugging, silverlight). If you are sure you can host on a compatible web server. For win application, I didn't see anything different in the IDE. The improvements come from new syntax features supported by the new version of the IDE, WPF, WCF and WF... If you don't/can't use it, what is the interest ? (I've tried the test framework, this feature is new and this can make you/your developpers more productive) What are the other features/improvements (not linked to the framework version) in this IDE version ? It's not easy to find them in the microsoft web site... Best regards, Julien
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I'm about to embark on a new development cycle for a major product that has winform and asp.net interface. We use Telerik, DevExpress and Infragistics components in it and all are going to have a release within a month or so which will be the one I target for our spring release of our product. They all support VS2005 and we will continue to target .net 2+ so I can't see any compelling reason so far to upgrade to VS2008. Has anyone found a compelling reason for vs2008 in the realm of .net development?
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
I know you are not interested in all the 3.5 stuff that many of us use, but I know at least on my systems, VS 2008 seemed much more stable than prior versions and since I do a lot of web work, the enhancments to the web engine were a huge help.
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Paper, Plastic or neither?
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The JavaScript debugging is improved, so if you do a lot of IE JS debugging, that might be worth it.
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You're right. These facts that you've laid out totally contradict the wild ramblings that I pulled off the back of cornflakes packets.
VS2008 lets you target .NET 3.5 or .NET 2.0, so you can get the benefits of the new IDE (JS debugging primarily, IME) without moving to 3.5. That said, the major benefit we've encountered with 3.5 is LINQ. I'm not necessarily talking LINQ to SQL here (don't want to ignite the ORM camp...), just regular LINQ. We have found that it has greatly reduced the amount of looping code we've written. Things like building dictionaries, selecting items from a list and the like are a veritable joy when using LINQ. I don't want to sound fanatical about this...but we've found it a joy to use once you become used to the syntax. :-D
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Voila :-) Firefox and firebug are the best, ms tries to copy but i rather stick with the real thing. ;-)
The latest version of Opera has a tool called Dragonfly in alpha. This may be comparable to Firebug but I don't think it's very stable at the moment. It does have JavaScript syntax highlighting which is nice. No doubt Firebug will follow suit in due course. IE 8 is supposed to have a dev tool but I've not looked into it to see whether it's any good.
Kevin
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The JavaScript debugging is improved, so if you do a lot of IE JS debugging, that might be worth it.
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You're right. These facts that you've laid out totally contradict the wild ramblings that I pulled off the back of cornflakes packets.
If you're using telerik controls turning on javascript debugging will ruin your life, IMO. All their controls seem to throw loads of javascript errors that get in the way of debugging any hand coded javascript. Also adding other Ajax Controls from other toolkits to the page also seems to break Telerik controls. I know this isn't a Telerik thread but I just have to say, I hate strongly dislike Telerik controls.
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I hopped from vs2003, to vs2005 and finally to vs2008. There are some good improvements to the framework like System.Timezone and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 performs much better than any of its predecessors, especially where web development is concerned. Think about it... if your about to embark on a major cycle now, best to bring your tools up to date before you start, especially with all those 3rd party library dependencies. I know from my own experiences that the telerik controls perform a lot better in recent versions. I am certainly glad i did it ;P
---Guy H ;-)---
Guy Harwood wrote:
There are some good improvements to the framework like System.Timezone and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 performs much better than any of its predecessors, especially where web development is concerned.
2005 was slower for webwork? 2008's
InfuryatingMultisecondUiDelay(5)calls when editing aspx pages is maddening enough. By the end of the short project I was almost to the point of using textpad for my aspx editor and giving up the syntax highlighting and autocomplete that VS offered.Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Guy Harwood wrote:
There are some good improvements to the framework like System.Timezone and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 performs much better than any of its predecessors, especially where web development is concerned.
2005 was slower for webwork? 2008's
InfuryatingMultisecondUiDelay(5)calls when editing aspx pages is maddening enough. By the end of the short project I was almost to the point of using textpad for my aspx editor and giving up the syntax highlighting and autocomplete that VS offered.Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
dan neely wrote:
2005 was slower for webwork? 2008's InfuryatingMultisecondUiDelay(5) calls when editing aspx pages is maddening enough. By the end of the short project I was almost to the point of using textpad for my aspx editor and giving up the syntax highlighting and autocomplete that VS offered.
:rolleyes:
---Guy H ;-)---
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Yes, it's definately worth the upgrade. I would actaully say go straight to VS2008 SP1 as well. There have been a lot of IDE improvements (usability features and speed) and improvements in the web development experience as well including better JS and CSS support.
Scott Dorman
Microsoft® MVP - Visual C# | MCPD President - Tampa Bay IASA [Blog][Articles][Forum Guidelines]
Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai
I would caution against using the SP1 for VS 2008 if you are trying to debug large multi-threaded/multi-appdomain applications. It will stop at your first break point and then ignore the rest. Most frustrating, we had to drop VS 2008+SP1 and reinstall VS 2008 to clean it up.
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ToddHileHoffer wrote:
It is too bad you can't do 3.5 development
I can, I investigated it thoroughly and could see no benefit at all to it and in fact many down sides and have chosen not to use it. I have a lot of hand crafted code for getting my objects into and out of the database and performance wise it's much faster. As well we aren't married to MS SQL server as we have a db independant layer between the database and the business object framework so we can support FireBird and MS SQL and whatever else comes along that starts getting wide usage. I'm not big on stored procedures, in fact I'm very much against them but that's a discussion for another thread. :)
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
John C wrote:
I'm not big on stored procedures, in fact I'm very much against them but that's a discussion for another thread.
I'd like to see that thread. We use stored procs for an added security layer (dynamic SQL leaves itself wide open for injection attacks much of the time) and also for processing that can't be simply left to a query, or where optimizations can be performed in lieu of what would otherwise be a standard query. However, if you've built your own db-independence layer, you're stuck with it until you have to throw it away. Back in '96, we certainly were.
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John C wrote:
I'm not big on stored procedures, in fact I'm very much against them but that's a discussion for another thread.
I'd like to see that thread. We use stored procs for an added security layer (dynamic SQL leaves itself wide open for injection attacks much of the time) and also for processing that can't be simply left to a query, or where optimizations can be performed in lieu of what would otherwise be a standard query. However, if you've built your own db-independence layer, you're stuck with it until you have to throw it away. Back in '96, we certainly were.
cpkilekofp wrote:
We use stored procs for an added security layer (dynamic SQL leaves itself wide open for injection attacks much of the time)
True, but those types of problems can be mitigated without using stored procedures. Parameterized queries act a lot like stored procedures, without the need to store them on the database.
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cpkilekofp wrote:
We use stored procs for an added security layer (dynamic SQL leaves itself wide open for injection attacks much of the time)
True, but those types of problems can be mitigated without using stored procedures. Parameterized queries act a lot like stored procedures, without the need to store them on the database.
Brad Stiles wrote:
True, but those types of problems can be mitigated without using stored procedures. Parameterized queries act a lot like stored procedures, without the need to store them on the database.
Yeah, and stored procedures don't need to be recompiled for every application instance, as parameterized queries do. Also, they can act as an abstraction layer for changes in the schema, guaranteeing you that you'll get the same recordset or output values back no matter how the schema changes. Further, that abstraction allows a database administrator whose focused attention can improve the performance and robustness of the stored procedure in complete independence of application distributions. If you're doing it all yourself, and you have limited knowledge of your data manipulation language (DML), then parameterized queries make the most sense. If you're guaranteed your schema will change or your perfomance needs will change no more frequently than your application code base, parameterized queries also make sense. I've worked on projects both ways, and the higher your need for performance and robustness, the more likely you are to move the data access code to the data server. No matter what you do to a parameterized query, it won't perform as well as a stored procedure except for the simplest operations. It can be a pain to maintain unless you use tools such as Visual Studio to edit (and debug, if your administrator permits) stored procedures and user-defined functions along with regular application code.
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Argh, we moved from Resharper 3.1 to 4 & it's been a complete PITA ever since. I switch it off half the time now coz it's become a resource hog.
But fortunately we have the nanny-state politicians who can step in to protect us poor stupid consumers, most of whom would not know a JVM from a frozen chicken. Bruce Pierson
Because programming is an art, not a science. Marc Clifton
I gave up when I couldn't spell "egg". Justine Allen -
John C wrote:
I'm not big on stored procedures, in fact I'm very much against them but that's a discussion for another thread.
My ideal world is that database access, XML and JavaScript are all completely abstracted away so that all you ever see is business logic and UI in high level code. :)
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
My ideal world is that database access, XML and JavaScript are all completely abstracted away so that all you ever see is business logic and UI in high level code.
I would rather like to have the UI implementation "abstracted away" :-D
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Ive noticed that too Resharper 4.1 is a real hog The 4.5 release is about speed and smaller footprint though
4.5 available yet? If it's beta is it stable?
But fortunately we have the nanny-state politicians who can step in to protect us poor stupid consumers, most of whom would not know a JVM from a frozen chicken. Bruce Pierson
Because programming is an art, not a science. Marc Clifton
I gave up when I couldn't spell "egg". Justine Allen -
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
My ideal world is that database access, XML and JavaScript are all completely abstracted away so that all you ever see is business logic and UI in high level code.
I would rather like to have the UI implementation "abstracted away" :-D
That as well. :)
Kevin
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Argh, we moved from Resharper 3.1 to 4 & it's been a complete PITA ever since. I switch it off half the time now coz it's become a resource hog.
But fortunately we have the nanny-state politicians who can step in to protect us poor stupid consumers, most of whom would not know a JVM from a frozen chicken. Bruce Pierson
Because programming is an art, not a science. Marc Clifton
I gave up when I couldn't spell "egg". Justine AllenI thought the Resharper resource story had been improving? All of these tools seem to generate complaints though. I use Refactor! Pro. It's mainly OK, though it does have its moments. Difficult to distinguish between it and VS 2005's general sluggishness though.
Kevin